Monday June 1, 2009 Gary Steinmeh

Theme: "Put Your Hands Where I Can See Them"

20A: "Hands up!": REACH FOR THE SKY

39A: "Hands down!": NO MORE QUESTIONS

55A: "Hands off!": LEAVE THAT ALONE

Argyle blogging.

I'm sorry but my computer/ISP is very slow this morning so my comments are abbreviated. I can count on the rest of you to put in their favorite links, can't I? I should say I didn't look at all the video links I used, so I hope they're all right.

Across:

6A: Deer little one: FAWN. And 10A: Little cow: CALF.

14A: __ Litella: Gilda Radner's "Never mind!" character: EMILY.

17A: "The Thinker" sculptor: RODIN. Pic. Was he thinking, "This is one uncomfortable pose"?

19A: Payroll tax that funds Soc. Sec.: FICA. Federal Insurance Contributions Act

23A: Fit for the military: ONE A.

24A: Do a slow burn: SEETHE.

27A: Backside: DUFF. It's not just a beer on the "Simpsons" Here are four other meanings derived from different roots.

31A: Like a childhood stage, to Freud : ORAL. Is the term fixation used anywhere else?

33A: Like fantastic tales: TALL.

35A: Do-__: desperate : OR DIE. DO-OR-DIE. The quote from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem is Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die. "Do, or do not. There is no try." - Yoda.

43A: Right triangle ratio: SINE.

44A: Razor-billed birds: AUKS. Their eyes are hard to make out.

47A: Doofus: DOLT.

49A: Fed. auditing agency: GAO. The Government Accountability Office

50A: "Pet" sources of irritation: PEEVES.

53A: Speed-of-sound word: MACH.

60A: Two-thirds of Santa's laugh: HO HO. A gimme for me!

61A: Old-time drummer Gene: KRUPA. Gene Krupa, 1909 – 1973, was born in Chicago. clip

63A: Refreshing rapper/actor?: ICE-T. and 9D: Summer refresher with a three-leaf logo: NESTEA. pic

65A: Pentium maker: INTEL.

68A: Letters before tees: ESSES.

Down:

3D: Purchase for your Xbox: VIDEO GAME.

4D: Gonzalez in 2000 news: ELIAN.

5D: Matched, as dubbed dialogue to mouth movements: SYNCED.

6D: Feudal estate: FIEF.

10D: Food fight site: CAFETERIA.

11D: Make-__ Foundation: A-WISH.

12D: English philosopher John: LOCKE.

13D: Chef Bobby: FLAY.

21D: Terre __, Indiana: HAUTE.

22D: Serf of ancient Sparta: HELOT.

26D: Camaro __-Z: muscle car: IROC. International Race of Champions. They have their own web site.

28D: Web pages with basic site info: FAQS. Frequently asked questions. Constructors get to use a Q without a U.

29D: Lighter __: Zippo filler: FLUID.

32D: Years on the job : LONGEVITY.

36D: Dunked snacks: DOUGHNUTS.

37D: Durante's "__ Dinka Doo": INKA. clip

38D: "Happy motoring" gas: ESSO.

40D: Christopher who played Superman: REEVE.

41D: Alabama march city: SELMA. Integration and civil rights march.

48D: Nonsilent film: TALKIE.

50D: London change: PENCE.

54D: Preserves, as beef: CORNS. Corned beef; one of those things where I like the cheaper cut better.

55D: Let go, with "off': LAID.

57D: Corrida critter: TORO. Is the editor putting in all these alliterations just for you, C.C,?

62D: Capp and Gore: ALS. A cartoonist and a subject of cartoons.

Answer grid.

Argyle

Monday May 25, 2009 Gia Christian

Theme: Play Ball!

18A: Not in working order, informally: OUT OF WHACK

23A: Crook who doesn't need the combination: SAFE CRACKER

36A: Union benefit during a walkout: STRIKE PAY

42A: Everything, informally: BALL OF WAX

47A: Promising picnic forecast: FAIR WEATHER

60A: Tendency to anger easily: FOUL TEMPER

(Note from C.C.: Argyle blogged today's post. Our editor Rich Norris seems to pick different alias name for himself according to the difficulty of the puzzle. All the Gia Christian and Lila Cherry puzzles we've solved are Monday's. Nora Pearlstone authored a hard Friday. Quite scrabbly puzzle today. Loved the OUT/SAFE, STRIKE/BALL & FAIR/FOUL order. Wish SHAG (54A: Thick carpet) were clued as baseball related too. )

Back to Argyle.

OUT OF WHACK. When a hitter is in a slump.

SAFECRACKER. Also known as a yegg or yeggman.

STRIKE PAY. Did ball players get any when they went on strike?

BALL OF WAX. Usually known as the whole BALL OF WAX.

FAIR WEATHER. Domed statiums don't worry about the weather.

FOUL TEMPER. None of that in baseball, is there?

Lest we forget: George Carlin's Baseball vs Football.

Across:

5A: Quick __ flash: AS A.

8A: Open, as a gate: UNBOLT.

15A: Dickens pen name: BOZ. Sketches by Boz was Dickens's first work.

16A: Connect, as a stereo: HOOK UP.

17A: Kind of party torch: TIKI. If you have watched "Survivor", you've seen these torches.

28A: Las Vegas's desert : MOJAVE. Most of it is in California.

33A: Shooter's aiming aid: SIGHT. Telescopic optic mounted on rifles.

41A: Shredded: TORE.

44A: Annual athletic awards: ESPYS. Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards from ESPN (Entertainment Sports Programming Network). If you would like to see the Best Major League Baseball Player ESPY Awards since 1993, go here. A-Rod won last year.

45A: Vote out: UNSEAT.

46A: Hip-hop Dr.: DRE.

54A: Thick carpet: SHAG. Also, a baseball term: shagging flies (to throw back fly balls during batting practice).

58A: Point on a wire fence: BARB. You won't find any barb wire fences on horse farms.

63A: Mrs. Peel of "The Avengers": EMMA. EMMA is due for a vacation.

64A: Regional dialect: PATOIS. Origin: 1635–45.

65A: Grammar best-seller "Woe __:: IS I. Woe is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better to better English by Patricia T O Conner, an editor at the New York Times Book Review.

67A: Start to nod off: DROWSE. As at a four hour ball game.

68A: Souse's woe: DTS. We sure have a lot of drunk references lately.

69A: Full of pep: SPRY.

Down:

1D: Madrid misses: Abbr.: SRTAS. Spainish senoritas.

2D: Boxer Ali: LAILA. Laila Ali with father Muhammed Ali. She probably "floats like a butterfly but stings like a bee".

3D: Request from: ASK OF.

4D: Moby Dick, notably: WHITE WHALE. From the book by Herman Melville.

6D: Composer of marches: SOUSA. Might hear one in a parade today.

7D: Early Mexican: AZTEC.

8D: TV dial letters: UHF. VHF/UHF Very high frequency/Ultra high frequency. This will have to be clued as former TV dial letters after next month.

10D: Quantum physicist Niels: BOHR. Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist who worked on the Manhatten Project and a frequent answer in crossword puzzles.

11D: "Works for me": OKAY.

12D: Time co-founder Henry: LUCE. Time Magazine co-founders Briton Hadden and Henry Luce were classmates at Yale University: more Eli's to remember.

13D: Toll rds.: TPKS. Turnpikes: don't like 'em, take the shunpike!

24D: Maine coon, for one: CAT. I had a cat that had some Maine Coon Cat in her. And 62D: Suffix with Siam: ESE. Siamese cat.

26D: Soldier of Seoul: ROK. We learned they fought on our side in Vietnam and earned Dennis' respect.

29D: Fashionable fliers: JET SETTERS.

30D: Per unit: A POP.

31D: Fluctuate: VARY.

33D: Child star of "The Thief of Bagdad" (1940): SABU. Sabu Dastagir, 1924 – 1963, was a film actor of Indian (South Asian) origin. Credited only by his first name, Sabu, for his role as Abu. movie poster As Abu, the thief , son of Abu the thief, grandson of Abu the thief, he helps the real Prince escape prison.

37D: Hijack-prevention gp.: TSA. Transportation Security Administration

38D: "Oedipus __": REX.

40D: Old Spice alternative: AFTA.

46D: Explosion remains: DEBRIS.

48D: "Big Blue": IBM. International Business Machines Corporation, abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue" (for its official corporate color).

49D: Fast: RAPID.

50D: Obtain using force: WREST.

51D: Overplay: HAM UP.

52D: Wascally Wabbit hunter: ELMER. Elmer Fudd, hunter.

54D: Bay Area enforcers, initially: SFPD. San Francisco Police Department.

57D: Vibrant look: GLOW.

It was a fun Monday puzzle. Everybody have a reverent Memorial Day and I don't believe today's honorees would mind if you watched a baseball game; it was one of the things they were fighting for.

Answer grid.

Argyle

Monday May 18, 2009 Dan Naddor

Theme: Just a Little R AND B (55D: Music genre suitable for this puzzle's theme), not R & B

22A: Pastrami sandwich choice: RYE BREAD

27A: Mexican side dish: REFRIED BEANS

48A: Beef for a Sunday dinner: ROAST BRISKET

56A: Float soft drink: ROOT BEER

Argyle blogging.

Few stumpers to keep the tyros on their toes but a good Monday.

Across:

1A: Fastener pressed with a thumb: TACK.

4A: Be successful: GO FAR.

10A: Five-star general Bradley: OMAR. Gen. Bradley was one of the main U.S. Army field commanders in North Africa and Europe during World War II.

14A: Had on: WORE.

15A: Cara of "Fame": IRENE. Flashdance.

17A: Monopoly token: IRON.

20A: Poem division: STANZA.

24A: Rise from the runway: TAKE OFF.

26A: Yeah's opposite: NAH.

33A: Revolutionary Guevara: CHE.

37A: Internet giant that recently fought Microsoft's hostile takeover attempt: YAHOO.

38A: 50%: HALF.

40A: Trivial, as talk: SMALL.

42A: Four-legged Oz traveler: TOTO.

43A: New York's __ Island: ELLIS.

45A: Granddaddy of digital computers: ENIAC. Short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer. ENIAC was designed and built to calculate artillery firing tables for the U.S. Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory.

52A: Like decades : TEN-YEAR. A span of ten years is a decade.

61A: Layers: STRATA.

63A: Model Campbell: NAOMI. Hard to find a photo where she isn't showing a lot of flesh!

65A: __ angle: obliquely: AT AN.

67A: Sci-fi robot: DROID. Short for android. Famous droids.

68A: Unlikely class president: NERD.

71A: Chicago daily, familiarly: TRIB.

Down:

1D: Chubby Checker's dance craze: TWIST.

4D: Original Easy-Bake Oven toy company: KENNER. OK, show of hands: Who had one of these ovens?

5D: Tallest animals: GIRAFFES.

6D: Bonanza rock: ORE.

10D: Break down due to lack of coolant, as an auto: OVERHEAT.

11D: Stallion's mate: MARE. Who will be Rachel Alexandra's mate?

12D: Most of Turkey is in it: ASIA.

13D: Film critic Rex: REED.

21D: "__101": Emmy- nominated Nickelodeon sitcom: ZOEY. With Jamie Lynn Spears. Umm, where have I heard that last name before?

25D: Drafter of the Constitution, e.g.: FRAMER.

28D: Persian, today: IRANI.

29D: Sign up: ENLIST.

30D: Sailor's cry: AHOY.

33D: Sonny's singing partner: CHER. The groovy couple. Feel free to link your favorite Sonny and Cher song.

39D: Skid, as a car's rear end: FISHTAIL. With the advent of front-wheel drive cars, most people don't experience fishtailing anymore.

41D: Summer cottage site: LAKESIDE.

49D: Country singer __ Lee: BRENDA.

50D: Despot: TYRANT.

53D: Peter, pumpkinwise: EATER. Peter Peter pumpkin eater / Had a wife and couldn't keep her /He put her in a pumpkin shell / And there he kept her very well!

54D: Video game pionee: ATARI.

56D: Go here and there: ROAM.

58D: Kind of agreement: ORAL.

60D: Corner chess piece: ROOK. Or castle.

64D: Part of MP: Abbr.: MIL. MILitary Police.

Grid answer.

Argyle

Monday May 11, 2009 Lila Cherry

Theme: Shades of RED (59D: The starts of this puzzle's three longest answers are shades of it)

20A: Lust, gluttony, greed, etc.: CARDINAL SINS

34A: Alabama team nickname: CRIMSON TIDE

51A: Ice cream flavor honoring a Grateful Dead icon: CHERRY GARCIA

(Note from C.C.: Today's post is blogged by Argyle. And today's puzzle is just another work from our editor Rich Norris. Lila Cherry is his alias name, anagram of "Really Rich". And he worked CHERRY into the grid. I love how PSI (3D: Trident-shaped Greek letter) parallels PITCHFORK (4DD: Tool in haystack). Greek god of the sea Poseidon is often portrayed as carrying a trident/PITCHFORK-shaped spear.)

Back to Argyle.

I am disappointed that our constructor, Lila CHERRY, didn't include a ROSE for MOMMA but she probably didn't know it would run the day after Mother's Day so I'll blame the editor. ;~)

The Grateful Dead icon was Jerry GARCIA, one of its original founders. The founders of Ben and Jerry's ice cream were a good fit with the philosophy of the Grateful Dead.

There seemed to be tres many French connections today.

Across:

10A: Rum-soaked cake: BABA. These are small cakes made from yeast dough containing raisins or currants. They are baked in cylindrical molds and then soaked with sugar syrup usually flavored with rum. In French, the word baba means "falling over or dizzy." (Any truth to that?) BABA au Rhum.

15A: Ark builder: NOAH. No, not Moses, you Densa's.

16A: like a happy dog's tail: AWAG. Another word used mostly in crosswords.

18A: About, in legal memos: IN RE. In re, Latin for "in the matter [of]".

19A: Lee seen in freezers: SARA. SARA Lee has been seen in my freezer, but not for long.

23A: "Charlotte's Web" author: E. B. WHITE. Elwyn Brooks White, 1899-1985. Because of the movie, I had no idea he was that old.

27A: Toy (with): TRIFLE.

28A: Brush fire operation, briefly: EVAC. Unfortunately, a common term in CA.

30A: Fed. stipend: SSI. Supplemental Security Income.

31A: Roughly: OR SO.

32A: Show proof of: EVINCE. And the proof you show is the evidence.

46A: The Virginian" actor Joel: McCREA. The Virginian was the only name his character had.

48A: You might have to pay one to get cash: ATM FEE

54A: Matador's opponent: TORO

56A: Singing group: CHOIR. and 10D: Lowest 56-Across members: BASSI. A plural of basso.

60A: "Sign me up": I'M IN.

61A: "Editorially speaking," in e-mail: IMHO. In My Humble Opinion. Really? I thought most editors would be just IMO.

63A: Boston NBAer, briefly: CELT. Boston Celtics.

Down:

1D: "Bill Nye the Science Guy" airer: PBS. Public Broadcasting Service

3D: Trident-shaped Greek letter: PSI. and

4D: Tool in a haystack: PITCHFORK. This and then this.

7D: Author Morrison: TONI. TONI Morrison wrote Beloved.

9D: Bird served "under glass": PHEASANT. (From C.C., I guessed. Not familiar with this dish - PHEASANT under glass.)

12D: Noble's partner: BARNES. BARNES & Noble. The book seller.

13D: Tennis great Andre: AGASSI. and 53D: Tennis star for whom a stadium is named: ASHE. Who would have won if Andre had played Arthur?

21D: 66, e.g.: Abbr.: RTE. The Stones version.

22D: Soap star Susan: LUCCI. She looked OK to me in a bikini. with Emmy

23D: DDE's WWII command: ETO. European Theater of Operations.

28D: Draw forth: EVOKE. The evidence evoked a plea of the fifth ammendment from the suspect.

29D: Rouge And blanc, on la carte: VINS. Curious mixture of French and English, eh?

32D: Opal suffix: ESCE. Opalesce. Verb. The adjective is opalescent.

33D: Johnny Carson's sidekick: ED MC'MAHON. Heeeere's Johnny!

36D: House that sucks you dry, so to speak: MONEY PIT. The movie. Anybody have personal tales to tell?

37D: Bronte heroine: EYRE. From "Jane EYRE". EMMA is another 4-letter possible answer.

41D: Chapeau: HAT. More French. The plural for chapeau is chapeaux.

42D: Stratagem: TACTIC.

43D: Where telecommuters work: AT HOME.

44D: "Bam!" chef: EMERIL. Lagasse.

46D: Karaoke singer's need, for short: MIC. Microphone. A lot of karaoke singers need more than a MIC.

50D: Heated crime?: ARSON. Cool clue.

57D: Old California fort: ORD. location.

58A: Suffix with chlor_: IDE.

Answer grid.

Argyle

Monday May 4, 2009 Gia Christian

Theme: B All You Can B

17A: Excellent performance: BANG-UP JOB

29A: Sci. class where many an "Eeuw!" is heard: BIO LAB

46A: Bill for what you drink: BAR TAB

62A: Satan: BEELZEBUB

11D: Betray by bad-mouthing: BACK STAB

39D: Angels or Dodgers: BALL CLUB

Another puzzle from our editor Rich Norris. Gia Christian is his alias name, anagram of "Again It's Rich".

There are total 16 letter B's (NY Times' record is 20) in this puzzle. And 1 Z, 1 J, 1 X and 5 K's. Quite impressive for a Monday puzzle.

I've never heard of BANG-UP referred to as "excellent". Argyle said the related words are: bully (?), corking (?), cracking, dandy and great.

My favorite fill today: KIBITZ (41D: Be a nuisance at the card game). I just learned this word a few weeks ago and I was able to nail it in one try. Quality word, very scrabbly.

Argyle co-blogged today's post with me. He will blog here alone next Monday.

Across:

5A: Beatnik's "I understood": I DIG. Whom exactly does a beatnik refer to?

9A: "I goofed": MY BAD. Can you imagine Shakespeare saying "MY BAD" to Anne Hathaway?

15A: The Beatles' "Love __": ME DO. Here is the clip.

16A: Italian violin maker: AMATI. Joshua Bell used his expensive STRAD for the famous subway incognito performance. Antonio Stradivari is a student of Nicolo AMATI.

19A: Big name in precision blades: X-ACTO. New brand name to me. Argyle said it's used by model makers everywhere.

20A: Dangerous household gas: RADON. Dictionary says it can cause lung cancer.

21A: Perp's excuse: ALIBI. Argyle is not OK with this clue.

23A: Author Kesey: KEN. He wrote "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".

24A: Winter fisherman's tool: ICE SAW. Is it electric? (Argyle said: bar, auger, yes. Saw, no. Saws are used to harvest ice blocks.)

26A: Out of kilter: AMISS

33A: Germany's von Bismarck: OTTO. He originated "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." Just learned the other day that OTTO has a "Wealth/Rich" root in German.

41A: Skewered meal: KABOB. Have never used KABOB alone. Always shish KABOB.

47A: Concorde, e.g.: SST. SuperSonic Transport. It's clued as "By gone boomers" in a NYT puzzle in March.

50A: Academy trainee: PLEBE. First year student. Thought of CADET first.

54A: The Big Apple, initially: NYC

55A: Eurasian range: URALS. The mountain range between Asia and Europe.

59A: Flourless cake: TORTE. This TORTE does have flour.

60A: Conger catcher. EELER. Rather ugly.

64A: Handles roughly: MAULS

66A: Old Bologna bucks: LIRE. Or LIRA.

67A: Round trip?: ORBIT. Great clue.

68A: Revue component: SKIT

Down:

1D: Rubble: DEBRIS

2D: Newton and Stern: ISAACS. A mathematician/physicist and a Jewish violin virtuoso.

3D: Smoothing tool: SANDER. Have never seen a SANDER in person.

4D: Science fiction award: HUGOS. Named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stores, according to Wikipeida. And the awards have been presented since 1955. See HUGO Awards logo. It has a rocket.

5D: Babysitter's handful: IMP. Little Beelzebub? I was thing of TOY.

6D: __ vu: DEJA. Opposite of "jamais vu". And the last vu is "presque vu".

8D: Desert largely in Mongolia: GOBI. True. It has a large presence inside China too (the Inner Mongolia autonomous region). We call GOBI Desert as "Gebi Shamo". Shamo is literally "desert" in Chinese.

9D: A stitch in time..." is one: MAXIM

10D: Vocalist Sumac: YMA. Just learned that her stage name means "beautiful flower/girl".

12D: Vouch for: ATTEST TO

13D: Singer Celine: DION. I like "The Power of Love".

18D: Lacking what it takes: UNABLE

22D: Eater of puréed peas: BABY

25D: Nintendo game system: WII. It competes with Microsoft's Xbox360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, according to Wikipedia.

27D: Dubuque native: IOWAN. Got the answer. Don't understand why the constructor singles out Dubuque.

32D: Put on __: pretend: AN ACT

34D: Tout's hangout, briefly: OTB (Off-Track Betting)

35D: Eagle's nest: AERIE. 80% vowels in this word.

38D: 2012 is the next one: LEAP YEAR

43D: "Ten-four" speaker: CBER. "Ten-four" is OK in CB talk.

44D: "Krazy" comics feline: KAT. That KAT was a real kard.

47D: Belgrade's country: SERBIA. Kosovo is part of SERBIA, isn't it?

48D: Ringed planet: SATURN. Ringed indeed.

49D: Host who expects you to answer his answer: TREBEK (Alex). This is Jeopardy!

51D: Explode: BURST

53D: Carols: NOELS

54D: Verne captain: NEMO. Has anyone read Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea"?

56D: First grade basics: ABCS

57D: Faucet problem: LEAK

58D: 18-wheeler: SEMI

61D: Connecticut Ivy Leaguer: ELI. Yale University is founded by Eli Yale.

Answer grid.

Arygle & C.C.

Monday April 27, 2009 Pancho Harrison

Theme: What a Slugger!

17A: One who's at home on the range: COWPUNCHER

57A: Noisy eater: LIP SMACKER

10D: Oater villain who attacks from hiding: BUSHWHACKER

25A: Girl idolizing a pop star, perhaps: TEENYBOPPER

I did not know BOP can mean "strike/hit" too. TEENYBOPPER was not a familiar phrase to me. Nor did I know COWPUNCHER is simply a slang for cowboy.

Read a few pages of Molly Irvins's "Bushwhacked" several summers' ago. But I had never bothered to check what's the exact meaning of bushwhack. Wikipedia says one the most famous men who fought as a BUSHWHACKER was Jesse James. LIP SMACKER is a lip gloss brand too.

Plus BOOT HILL (28A: Gunfighters' graveyard) and NRA (55A: Org. that sticks to its guns?), this puzzle has some force!

Several affixes in today's grid: RESOD (64: Patch the lawn, in a way), USER (16A: Manipulative sort), SUER (54A: Litigant), and WRESTLER (38D: Andre the Giant, e.g.). Andre the Giant is also the nickname of Vogue's Andre Leon Talley, the adviser on fashion to the Obama's. He introduced Jason Wu to Michelle Obama.

Just found out earlier that Pancho in Pancho Harrison means "free man" in Spanish. Not an easy Monday for me at all. I think I am in a slump.

Across:

1A: Big name in copiers: MITA. Xerox, Canon & Ricoh are big to me. I've never heard of MITA copier.

5A: Improvise on stage: AD-LIB. Always thought Obama is good at AD-LIB. Had no idea that he relies on teleprompter heavily.

10A: Yawn-inducing speaker: BORE. And its anagram BOER (21A: Transvaal settler). Transvaal means "beyond the Vaal River" in Afrikaans. Is two a's spelling also common in Dutch language?

15A: Gaucho's rope: RIATA. Or REATA, often clued as "Giant" ranch.

19A: Venetian blind part: SLAT. Once Williams clued SLAT as "Louvre part" and confused the hell out of me. I did not know louver can be spelled as louvre, so I kept thinking of the museum.

20A: Make haste: HIE. Used to mix HIE with FIE.

22A: Words after "Hi, honey!": I'M HOME

24A:Counting everything: ALL TOLD

26A: Crock-Pot potful: STEW. Winter is over, no more STEW or chili.

27A: Antiquity, once: ELD. Oh, I had the wrong notion that ELD is an old adjective meaning "old".

35A: Jean Auel's "The __ of the Cave Bear": CLAN. Sigh! I totally forgot about this book. Someone mentioned the Daryl Hannah (Ayla) movie before. I bet it's a gimme for Crockett. Jean Auel lives in Oregon.

36A: 1998 Sarah McLachlan hit: ADIA. Here is the clip. I used to confuse the song with Verdi's AIDA.

40A: 1960s Cosby/Culp espionage series: I SPY. Learned the title I SPY from doing Xword. Sounds fun.

41A: Roger of "Cheers": REES. Nope. Not a familiar actor to me. He is a Welsh-American. He looks very cold.

42A: Do axels and lutzes: SKATE. Did not know the plural form of lutz is lutzes. What's the plural for Pez then? Pezes?

43A: Corned beef is usually ordered on it: RYE BREAD. What's the difference between RYE BREAD and Pumpernickel again? I am not fond of caraway seeds.

47A: Take back, as a public statement: RETRACT

51A: Fozzie Bear, e.g.: MUPPET. Fozzie Bear is new to me.

60A: Doily material: LACE. "Lingerie material" too.

62A: Queen played by Liz: CLEO. Have you tried Cleopatra's milk and honey bath?

63A: Norse thunder god: THOR. Thursday is named after him.

Down:

1D: Coffee-chocolate mix: MOCHA. Named after the Yemen port.

2D: How some tuna is packed: IN OIL

3D: Beach drier: TOWEL

4D: Dada pioneer Jean: ARP

8D: Suffix with Canaan: ITE. Suffix with Israel also.

9D: Voice between bass and tenor: BARITONE. Is Michael Bublé a BARITONE?

13D: Art Deco designer: ERTE. French pronunciation of his initials R. T. (Romain de Tirtoff).

18D: Horseshoe-shaped hardware: U-BOLT. I forgot what a U-BOLT is.

26D: Uses a hang glider: SOARS. Did not know what a hang glider is.

28D: Run, as colors in the wash: BLEED

32D: Light-skinned: FAIR. Filled in PALE first.

34D: Easy gait: LOPE. Wanted TROT.

35D: Use crib notes: CHEAT. Not familiar with "crib notes". I pictured notes written on baby's crib.

42D: Kama __: SUTRA. Kama is Hindu god of erotic desire. SUTRA is Hindu aphorism.

47D: Rene of "Tin Cup": RUSSO. She is an Italian-American. I thought she has Russian roots. "Tin Cup" is a good movie.

48D: Bracelet site: ANKLE. Not WRIST? What about anklet then?

51D: Ice cream drink: MALT. What's your daily beverage for dinner? I have a friend who drinks milk with his meal. Weird.

53D: Somewhat, in music: POCO. New word to me. ASSAI is "Very, in music". Both Italian are origins.

69D: IV amounts: CCS. Just had CCED the other day. Now I am waiting for CCING.

Answer Grid.

C.C.

Monday April 20, 2009 David W. Cromer

Theme: Again and Again

18A: Start of many a corny joke: KNOCK, KNOCK

27A: Start of a trucker's communication: BREAKER, BREAKER

49A: Start of a sound man's mike check: TESTING, TESTING

65A: Start of a newsboy's cry: EXTRA, EXTRA

Easy guess on BREAKER BREAKER. I did not know how a trucker started his communication.

Is there a special term for this kind of doubled-up phrases?

Smooth sailing today. I had only one error. I penned in THE SHARK rather than THE SHACK for 42D: 2007 William P. Young Christian-themed best-seller. Wikipedia say the book title is a metaphor for "the house you build out of your own pain".

I like how RAP (30D: Music genre in the 'hood) and BLING (31D: Jewelry in the 'hood) parallel each other in the grid.

Another 40 black square grid. It seems to be the most common in LAT. We used to get lots of 38.

Across:

5A: Play-of-color gem: OPAL. Because it changes color when tilted?

9A: To the left, at sea: APORT. What is "To the right, at sea"? A-starboard? Another nautical term I am not clear about is abeam. Dictionary says it's "the right ankle to the keel". Is it like those masts? They seem to be perpendicular to the keel.

16A: Medium for FDR's fireside chats: RADIO. For Obama, it's YouTube. Ashton Kutcher just beat CNN the other day and became the first Twitter to have 1 million followers.

20A: O'Hara's estate: TARA. "I'll always have TARA" & "Tomorrow is another day".

38A: "Metamorphoses" poet: OVID (43BC-AD 17 or 18). A contemporary of Virgil (Aeneid). Learned from doing Xword. "Metamorphoses" is a "narrative poem (often called mock epic) in 15 books that describes the creation and history of the world", according to Wikipedia. And the recurring theme is about love. Amor vincit omnia!

40A: Like milk on the floor: SPILT

53A: Cancún cash: PESO. Another alliteration.

55A: Manuscript encl.: SASE (Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope)

58A: Remove by percolation: LEACH

67A: City near Sacramento: LODI. This city keeps popping up in LAT puzzle. Wikipedia says it's the birthplace of A&W Root Beer and A&W Restaurants.

69A: High-performance Camaro: IROC. I forgot all about this car. IROC is named after the popular competition International Race of Champions. IROC, IROC, I rock. Maybe I will remember it next time.

Down:

6D: __ colada: PINA. Interesting, Wikipedia says it's the official beverage of Puerto Rico. Where is pineapple originally from? I know China is the leading producer of pineapple in the world now.

8D: Hannibal the Cannibal: LECTER. Rhyming clue. He eats liver and fava beans. Maybe something else. I can't remember. Scary movie, "The Silence of the Lambs".

13D: Casino gratuity: TOKE. New slang to me. It's not related to token, is it?

19D: NASCAR's Petty or Busch: KYLE. Easy guess. I know nothing about NASCAR.

28D: Fastener for Rosie: RIVET. Rosie the RIVETER.

33D: King's tenure: REIGN. Ah, just a normal king. I thought of Larry King first.

39D: Scatter: DISPERSE

51D: "You can't get out of this way" sign: NO EXIT

52D: One whose job is fitting?: TAILOR. Why question mark here? Part of TAILOR's job is fitting.

57D: Ollie's sidekick: STAN. Laurel and Hardy. Learned from doing Xword also. I bet we will see another STAN this week.

59D: Gillette razor: ATRA. Introduced in 1977. P&G acquired Gillette in 2005.

62D: Sheltered inlet: COVE. Like this.

Answer grid.

C.C.

Monday April 13, 2009 Fred Jackson III

Theme: Gas Gauge

20A: Conceited: FULL OF ONESELF

38A: Plan not completely thought after: HALF-BAKED IDEA

57A: Much campaign rhetoric: EMPTY PROMISES

Ah, a puzzle from our own Fred Jackson III. What a pleasant Monday morning surprise! Congratulations, Fred.

This puzzle seems to be tailor-made for solvers at my level. No obscure dead actor/actress or old TV series name. Three lively theme answers. I really like 15*15 grids with 3 or 4 theme entries. My cup of tea. 5 makes the grid look busy. And weird abbreviations or obscure ESSY Persson style name tend to creep up when there are 6 or 7. Maybe advanced solvers adore them, I don't.

A bit of a French sub-theme:

19A: Parisian river: SEINE

30A: French love: AMOUR

69A: Canonized Mlles: STES

53D: Gallic girlfriends: AMIE

All of them are clued straightforwardly. No trickly "Parisian flower?" for SEINE misguide.

Across:

1A: Put below, as cargo: STOW. Why "below"? I don't grok it.

5A: Potentially painful precipitation: HAIL. Some flowers are surprisingly strong. ROSES (55D: Thorny flowers) are easily damaged by hailstorms.

9A: Treasure map measures: PACES. How come? I got the answer from down fills. I've never seen a treasure map. I suppose it has its own scale term?

15A: __ Domini: ANNO. AD. Nominative singular is ANNUS, and plural is ANNI (anniversary). This is confusing. Is ANNO in ANNO Domini dative singular or ablative singular?

18A: Composer Stravinsky: IGOR. Sometimes it's clued as "Operative prince". And IAGO (60D: "Othello" fellow). I used to confuse those two, both contains GO. And two ao in Golfer Isao Aoki's name.

23A: Brit. record label: EMI (Electric & Musical Industries Ltd.). Just found out this morning that the "Big Four" record companies are EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music.

24A: Former Egypt-Syria alliance: Abbr.: UAR (United Arab Republic, 1958-1961). Egypt continued to be called UAR until 1971. So Nasser was the president of UAR until his death in 1970. Don't confuse UAR with UAE (United Arab Emirates). Still remember the UAE Dubai port scandal?

25A: Beers and ales: QUAFFS. I thought ale is a kind of beer.

33A: Last: Abbr.: ULT

37A: Scott who sued for his freedom: DRED. And he lost. I finally remember his name this time.

42A: Suffix with hard or soft: WARE. My first thought is BALL.

43A: Seashell seller, in a tongue twister: SHE. I am not good at tongue twister, English or Chinese. Are you?

44A: Retirement org.: SSA. And "Seniors' org" is AARP. Many AARP members are not retired.

45A: "Slippery" tree: ELM. Easy guess. Why is it called "Slippery ELM"?

46A: Archaeological fragment: SHARD. I think the broken piece of my bobblehead is called SHARD too.

48A: Like some poetry: LYRIC. Some are EPIC.

52A: Prefix with sphere: STRATO. ATMO is also "prefix with sphere".

56A: "Foucault's Pendulum" author Umberto: ECO. Here is the bookcover. Wikipedia says the book has been described as a "thinking person's Da Vinci Code". I can't remember who, but one of our fellow solvers has read his "The Name of the Rose".

61A: Count with a keyboard: BASIE. Stumper for me. I can't figure out how one can count with a keyboard. Have never heard of Count BASIE. Is this nickname Count inspired by Duke Ellington?

63A: Warts and all: AS IS

65A: Group of eight: OCTET. Sometimes the answer is OCTAD.

66A: Stroll in the shallows: WADE. I kept reading the clue as "Stroll in the shadows".

67A: Head over heels in love: GAGA. I like this clue.

68A: Out of fashion: PASSE. Does Britney look sexy to you in this low-rise jeans?

Down:

1D: Fixed charge: SET FEE

2D: Psychological injury: TRAUMA. Like what we suffered during Chinese Cultural Revolution.

3D: Like many old-fashioned lamps: OIL-LIT. Aladdin's genie lamp is OIL-LIT.

4D: Wishing place: WELL. Odin traded his right eye for wisdom from the WELL of Mimir.

5D: Israeli port city: HAIFA. Here is the map. Third largest city in Israel, after Jerusalem & Tel Aviv.

9D: Charlatan: POSEUR

10D: Journalist __ Rogers St. Johns: ADELA. Learned her name from doing crossword. I don't understand how anyone can be surnamed St. Johns. Also at a loss over Edna St. Vincent Millay's name. How can they call themselves St? By the way, Fred Astaire's sister is ADELE, very close to ADELA.

11D: Hairdo: COIFFURE. Used to have difficulty rememering this word. Then I realized coif is the root, and ure is just a noun suffix, as in pressure.

21D: Words before sight and mind: OUT OF

26D: Dog collar target: FLEA. No idea. Why? I am not a dog/cat person. I thought the dog collar is used to control and restrain dogs.

27D: Benchmark: Abbr.: STD

29D: Dot on an ocean map: ISLE. "Dot in la mer" will be ILE.

35D: Air rifle ammo: BB SHOT. Will BB gun kill a squirrel?

38D: "Stop right there!": HALT. "Stop right here!" would be WHOA, right?

41D: Faith of more than 1 billion: ISLAM. Oh, that's a lot. Here is more information. There are about 2.1 billion people of Christian faith. That's about 1/3 of the world population. ISLAM literally means "submission" (to God).

42D: Craven of Horror: WES. The director of "A Nightmare on Elm Street".

46D: Tampa neighbor, briefly: ST. PETE. Wikipedia says it's nicknamed "The Sunshine City" because it has some 360 days of sunshine every year. Is it true? I find it hard to believe.

47D: Pooh-pooh: DERIDE

49D: Shoot again: RESNAP

51D: Marquee name, often: CO-STAR. Spencer Tracy received top billings in all the movies he co-starred with Katharine Hepburn.

58D: Swerves at sea: YAWS. "Swerves in the air" too. Someone please give me a lesson today. I can never remember the differences among roll, pitch and YAW. I do know Dennis's thrust though.

59D: Juniors' H.S. exam: PSAT (Preliminary SAT). Oh, I don't know it's for juniors only. How about LSAT? Are juniors allowed to take it also?

61D: '40 jazz: BOP. Did not know BOP was developed in the '40. I thought it existed in '20 already.

62D: Here, in Spain: ACA. Mine was ICA. Don't speak Spanish. I thought if French is ICI, why not ICA for Spanish?

Answer grid.

C.C.

Monday April 6, 2009 Elizabeth A. Long

Theme: BE QUIET (36A: "Shh!" (and a hint to the feature shared by the answers to starred clues))

20A: *Shari Lewis puppet: LAMB CHOP

52A: *Act all innocent: PLAY DUMB

11D: *Duster's find at a crime scene: THUMB PRINT

28D: *Precariously situated: OUT ON A LIMB

Hmm, no scrabbly JAMB. All B's are silent. Great puzzle. I like how BE QUIET is positioned in the very middle of the grid. Very creative theme title. I also like how letter B starts the puzzle (1A: Narrow-necked pear: BOSC) and ends the puzzle (65A: Swedish auto: SABB). Nice touch!

B is such a strange letter. Sometimes it's also silent when it's in the middle of the words like debt, subtle, doubtful, etc.

I did not know CALEB (21D: Biblical spy). But "spy" should not be part of the clue as SPY is the answer for 46D: "James Bond, e.g.". Come to the Comments section if you have a better clue for CALEB. Dictionary says it means "dog" in Hebrew.

Will be busy in the next few weeks, so my blog Comments will be very limited.

Across:

5A: James who robbed trains: JESSE. Learned this name on my first day with Pinkerton China. We focused on Intellectual Property investigation and surveillance/debugging. Several of my ex-colleagues are EX-COPs (6D: Many a security guard), ex-Marines, British/German military force, etc. Most speak fluent Chinese.

17A: "Pow!" relative: WHAM. Also George Michael's ex-band. His original Greek name is insane, lots of vowels. I like "Careless Whisper".

18: Immune system agent: T- CELL. T stands for thymus. The B in B-CELL stands for bursa. Anyone knows the difference between T-CELL and B-CELL?

19A: Litter's littlest: RUNTS. I like this clue.

24A: Open-bodied truck: FLAT BED. Oh, I did not know this kind of trailer has a special name.

26A: Moon mission name: APOLLO. Reminds me of JD's comment on Pan the FAUN. She said Pan "created panic by showing up unannounced and scaring "people." He fell in love with the moon, but the moon said he was too ugly to marry and smelled like a goat. So he dressed up as a sweet fluffy lamb and lured the moon into the woods.When she recognized his voice, she hid behind the earth's shadow for many days, creating the 1st eclipse."

30A: No-goodnick: LOUSE. Just noticed that the plural for "No-goodnick" LOUSE is louses. But the plural for the insect LOUSE is lice.

31A: Really punch: SLUG. Hence slugger.

32A: Hops. scanners: MRIS

39A: Legal Lance: ITO. Has he written a book about the Simpson trial as well?

42A: Hit, in billiards: CUED. I like the ambiguity in tense.

45A: Jeff Gordon was its 1993 Rookie of the Year: NASCAR. Oh, I don't know this trivia. Do remember his messy divorce though.

47A: Cavern: GROTTO. And the person who explore caves is a spelunker.

50A: Gucci of fashion: ALDO. No idea. He looks like a mafia too. His father, the founder of Gucci, is named Guccio Gucci.

57A: Soft-tipped pen brand: FLAIR. Another unknown. FLAIR is just a baseball card brand to me.

60A: Dole's 1996 running mate: KEMP (Jack). I forgot. His name appeared in our puzzle before. Someone mentioned his football career last time. Wikipedia says he was a quarterback for 13 years. Reminds me of Senator Jim Bunning (KY). He was a former pitcher. Hall-of-Famer.

61A: Give up: WAIVE. Forgo also has 5 letters.

62A: This, in Tegucigalpa: ESTO. Or ESTA. "That" is ESO. Crossword editors seem to be very fond of alliteration. I had no idea that Tegucigapla is the capital of Honduras. What do you associate Honduras with? Me, banana.

64A: Force units: DYNES. Rooted in Greek dunamis (power), the same origin of "dynamic".

Down:

3D: Pillow covering: SHAM. Wonder when Rich Norris will take a shot at the ilks of Bernie Madoff/Allan Standord. I don't think I will buy Topps Ponzi Cards of Shame. Certain card inserts hold no attraction to me.

4D: Drummer's crashers: CYMBALS. Same pronunciation as symbols, correct? I'd love to hear how UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pronounces bad/bed, sax/sex. I think he might have the same problem as I do.

5D: Rockers __ Tull: JETHRO. No idea. What's their most famous song? Al mentioned the British band ELP yesterday. Look at side two of this album. Isn't it interesting? The Three Fates (Clotho, Lachesis & Atropos).

10D: Layer: STRATUM. Can you think of another clue?

12D: Tennessee-born country singer Ford: ERNIE. His face looks very familiar. I must have googled him before. So many ERNIES to clue: ERNIE Els, ERNIE Banks, who else?

13D: Like a subdued trumpet: MUTED

22D: Paw's mate?: MAW. Comic book? I don't know. I've never heard of MAW & Paw.

25D: Opera box: LOGE. The Italian magistrate is DOGE.

27D: Protruded-lip expression: POUT. Thought of Angelina Jolie and her POUT. Do you think she is beautiful than Chinese actress Gong Li?

31D: Cheerleader unit: SQUAD

37D: Pilate's "Behold!": ECCE Pilate is the guy who said "Ecce homo!" Here is Titian's painting "ECCE Homo". Williams once clued ECCO as "Behod, to Guido". I thought he made up the word.

41D: Trounces: WALLOPS

44D: Annoying people: NOODGES. Variant of nudge. New to me. I only knew the "gentle push" meaning of nudge.

47D: Piercing looks: GLARE. Probably the most piercing and unforgettable eyes in the world.

50D: __ and kicking: ALIVE. I like Celine Dion's "I am ALIVE."

52D: It can be chronic or shooting: PAIN. What is shooting PAIN?

53D: Bear among the stars: URSA. URSA Major & URSA Minor. Latin for "bear". I also found out this morning that Latin for duck is anas.

55D: "We're not serving liquor," briefly: BYOB (Bring Your Own Bottle).

57D: Bk. introduction: FWD

58D: Make, as a wager: LAY. Mine was BET. I am not familiar with the term "LAY a wager".

Answer Grid.

C.C.

Monday March 30, 2009 Donna S. Levin

Theme: Ratings

17A: Franklin's almanac-writing alter ego: POOR RICHARD

27A: Young, promising fellow: FAIR-HAIRED BOY

48A: Beneficent biblical traveler: GOOD SAMARITAN

64A: F. Scott Fitzgerald title character, with "the": GREAT GATSBY

This is about customer satisfaction ratings, correct? Since credit card ratings are POOR, FAIR, GOOD and EXCELLENT.

I like "The GREAT GATSBY", a book that I actually can understand. Also like Robert Redford's role in the movie. Fitzgerald was born here in St. Paul, MN. The Fitzgerald Center, where Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" is recorded, is named after him.

Nice theme answer sequence, from POOR to GREAT, very orderly. No clever "Little butter?" today though. Everything is so straightforward and simple. Kind of boring though. I aced.

Oh, I just learned that Chicago Tribune does not carry LA Times puzzle on their Sunday paper. Very strange. Is that the same with your local paper also? Can you come to the Comments section and tell me what puzzles are on your Sunday paper? Thanks.

Across:

11A: Chugalug's opposite: SIP. Knew "chug", did not know "chugalug". I pictured "chugalug" as something similar to quahog, the clam I did not know until you guys mentioned it a few months ago. Clams are strange, no head, no eyes.

16A: Cyberaddress, briefly: URL. Many of you find me every day by googling "Star Tribune Crossword Corner". I hope you just bookmark it. I might change the blog name someday, since our paper does not carry LA Times puzzle.

19A: "Right to bear arms" grp.: NRA. Charlton Heston served as NRA president from 1998 to 2003.

22A: Port in Yemen: ADEN. ADEN sounds like a young city to me. I was surprised to learn that "Aden may be as old as human history itself. Some also believe that Cain and Abel are buried somewhere in the city". So approximately how many years? I know nothing about Bible.

23A: Detroit labor org.: UAW. They are partly responsible for this Big Three financial mess.

25A: Furious: IN A RAGE

32A: Hosp. staffer: LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse). New abbreviation to me. Got it easily from down fills.

34A: Conspiring band: CABAL. Rooted in CABALA, which was clued as "Secret doctrine" in our puzzle last Thursday.

39A: Woman's golf garment: SKORT. SK(IRT) + (SH)ORT. Made famous by Natalie Gulbis. Vera Wang's idea I think. LPGA, so worried about its low spectator turnout, invited Wang to give players a talk on how to dress (sexily) in golf course. She suggested them to get rid of the belt. Bam! Every player started to wear SKORT, including Annika.

52A: Cocktail maker: BAR KEEP. I only know bartender.

54A: Actor Afflect: BEN. Which is your favorite BEN Afflect movie? I liked his "Pearl Harbor" the most. He should run for MA Governor/Senator someday.

55A: "__ brillig, and the slithy..." Carrol: 'TWAS. Pure guess. What does "brillig" mean? Brilliant?

56A: Beautiful, in Bologna: BELLA. All alliteration. Italian guys seem to like calling girls BELLA, even if they are not beautiful.

67A: Paris Hilton's sister: NICKY. NICKY Hilton is quite talented actually. She designed some cute handbags.

68A: Nigeria neighbor: BENIN. Its capital city is Porto-Novo. Portuguese for "New Port". Originally developed as a port for the slave trade, according to Wikipedia.

69A: Hospital VIPs: MDS

Down:

3D: Nebraska tribe: OTOE. Always thought they are a "Oklahoma tribe".

6D: "__ Ado About Nothing": MUCH. Ah, the epitome of double entendre. "Nothing" is not really nothing. It's the "O-thing".

7D: Labor Dept. arm: OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration). Created under the Nixon Administration. Nixon was quite respected in China due to his groundbreaking visit in 1972.

8D: Sweetheart: DEARIE. My husband never calls me "Sweetheart" or DEARIE. Always "Lao Po", Chinese for "wife".

10D: Leary's turn-on: LSD. No "tripping" wordplay.

11D: Church garb: SUNDAY BEST. New "garb" to me. I only go to church when there is a wedding or funeral.

12D: Flawed, as sale mdse: IRREG. Really? I thought it's IRR. I need to pay attention to those abbreviations.

22D: Clamorous: AROAR. Used to hate A* words. Now I like them.

24D: Sushi tuna: AHI. Yellowfin tuna. AHI means "fire" in Hawaiian. This sesame crusted AHI tuna looks so tasty. I like AHI sushi & AHI sashimi.

26D: "Dancing with the Stars" network: ABC. Easy guess. I've never watched that program.

29D: Blends together into a whole: INTEGRATES

31D: "Valerie Harper" sitcom: RHODA. Learned from doing Xword. "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" seemed to be a big deal.

38D: Fish catchers: HOOKS. Hmm, no golf? I think Rich Norris HOOKS.

40D: Dream state acronym: REM

46D: "Desert Storm" chow, initially: MRE. Why "Desert Storm"? Isn't it still called MRE now?

49D: Rubbish: DEBRIS. The plural form of DEBRIS is still DEBRIS, isn't it?

58D: Astronomical distance meas.: LTYR (Light-Year). Reminds me of Woody and Buzz Lightyear.

60D: Annapolis inst.: USNA. Might be a different clue had Sen. McCain won the presidency.

62D: Daly of "Cagney & Lacey": TYNE. Know her name. Not familiar with "Cagney & Lacey".

64D: Wildebeest: GNU. I've never understood why they change "Wild Beast" into "Wildebeest". Maybe GNUS know. Strange, isn't it? The babies and mother have so different body colors.

Full Answer Grid.

C.C.

Monday March 23, 2009 Pancho Harrison

Theme: Latin Numeral Prefixes

20A: All-in-one home entertainment gadget: UNIVERSAL REMOTE

38A: Pact between two countries: BILATERAL TREATY

57A: Geometric solid with five faces, ironically: TRIANGULAR PRISM

Four is quadri/quadr, five is quinque/quinqu. The corresponding Greek prefixes are: mono (1), di (2), tri (3), tetra/tetr (4) and penta/pent (5). See this list.

TRIANGULAR PRISM is new to me. If it's "ironically", why don't they change the name to Quartangular Prism or Pentangular Prism? I wonder who originally coined the term.

I am glad we are given a Monday puzzle to start with. I was able to fill in lots of blanks with authority. No "Shock and Awe" or "Shock and Oh". Feels like a nice round on a Par 3 executive course at the beginning of the season.

However, the real shocker for me was to see Newsday puzzle (edited by Stan Newman) in our Star Tribune this morning. It's authored by Gail Grabowski. There is only a short 2-line announcement saying "Today's Newsday puzzle replaces the TMS Daily Crossword Puzzle, which is no longer available".

I hope you guys get LA Times puzzle. If not, you can always go to LA Times website and print out the puzzle. I won't blog Newsday.

Oh, Carol asked why this puzzle is titled "Card for Two" yesterday. I don't understand myself. Can you help us?

Across:

13A: Crime scene find: CLUE. Thought of GUNS immediately. But the CLUE clue is singular.

24A: Coin of the __: legal currency: REALM. New to me. So our coin of the REALM is U.S. dollar?

25A: Mt. Rushmore's state: S. DAK. Have never been there. Wikipedia says Mt. Rushmore was originally known to the Lakota Sioux as Six Grandfathers and was later renamed after Charles E. Rushmore, a prominent New York lawyer, during an expedition in 1885. I wonder why the sculptor did not carve 6 presidents initially.

27A: Intelligence, slangily: SMARTS. I was thinking of CIA/NSA style intelligence. But of course, I don't really know what their slang for intelligence is. Any idea?

34A: Colorful quartz: AGATE

37A: Durable wood: TEAK. And water-resistant, right? Since it's used to build ship. I've never seen TEAK timber in person, is it really oily?

42A: "___ Almighty", 2007 Steve Carell film: EVAN. Have heard of the film. Not interested.

43A: Where sailors go: TO SEA. Yeah, true. But I think they also like to go TO BARS.

53A: Pound's 16: OUNCES. My mind is clearly foggy this morning. I don't know. But I was thinking of Ezra Pound. Who knows, he might have written 16 famous poems/letters to someone I was not aware of. Or he could have 16 LOVERS, which also has 6 letters.

65A: Busybody: YENTA. The matchmaker in "Fiddler on the Roof" is called YENTE. And the Barbra Steisand film is named YENTL. Is this YENT some kind of Hebrew prefix?

66A: Exam for future Drs.: MCAT. (Medical College Admission Test). No idea. I thought it would be ?SAT like LSAT for "Exam for future attys".

68A: Netherworld river: STYX. Achilles' mom forgot to dip his heel here. Another Netherworld river is Lethe, the river of forgetfulness.

Down:

1D: Clean using elbow grease: SCRUB. I like this clue.

2D: 1985 Malkovich film: ELENI. I crossed the River Lethe on the name of this film. Saw identical clue somewhere before.

3D: See 10-Down: RUBIK. And ERNO (10D: With 3-Down, inventor of a puzzling cube). Reminds me of Will Smith playing RUBIK's cube in "The Pursuit of Happyness".

4D: "___ and Butt-head": MTV cartoon: BEAVIS. Obtained the answer from across fills.

9D: Fellow Dodger, e.g.: TEAMMATE. Ah, now we are solving LA Times puzzle. I expect plenty of Dodgers reference in the future.

29D: Westminster art gallery: TATE. Named after Henry TATE, a sugar tycoon & art collector.

30D: Terrier named for a Scottish isle: SKYE. And don't forget actress Ione SKYE. Really liked her role in "Say Anything" with John Cusack.

35D: Chinese way: TAO. Japanese corruption of our TAO is do. Judo is literally "Soft way". Kendo (Japanese fencing) is "Way of the sword".

39D: Like many Disney film: ANIMATED

40D: Bill Clinton's instrument: TENOR SAX. Or TENOR SEX to me, since there is no difference in my SAX and SEX pronunciations. I thought of SAXOPHONE first. But it did not fit.

41D: Incurred, as debts: RAN UP

51D: Saharan hills: DUNES

54D: Home of the NFL's Bengals, casually: CINCY. Not a football fun. Did not know where exactly is the home of the Bengals. It's rumored that Vikings are moving to LA.

55D: To be, in Tijuana: ESTAR. No idea. Don't speak Spanish. Only know "To be, in Paris" is ETRE. So how do you say "To be, or not to be" in Spanish?

56D: Clobber, in the Bible: SMITE. So smitten is "Awe-clobbered"?

57D: Uno plus dos: TRES. "The theme is mirrored in this clue and answer pair", according to Orange.

59D: "Picnic" Pulitzer winner: INGE (William). No waffling between INGE and AGEE this time due to the crossing clues. AGEE is "A Death in the Family" Putlizer winner. Also the co-screenwriter for "The African Queen". Oh, another crossword Pulitzer winner is ALBEE, who wrote "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf".

Full answer grid.

C.C.

Monday March 16, 2009 Jo Vita

Theme: Colorful Places

29A: Southernmost city in Texas: BROWNSVILLE

58A: Town on Great Slave Lake: YELLOWKNIFE

11D: Virginia Tech location: BLACKSBURG

28D: Neighbor of Winston-Salem: GREENSBORO

BLACKSBURG brought back the horrifying scenes of the Virginia Tech shooting. It's the only theme answer I've heard of.

Why would someone name a town YELLOWKNIFE? Sounds haunted and dangerous to live. Is GREENSBORO a shortened word for Greensborough? BROWNSVILLE was very easy to obtain. Wikipedia says Kris Kristofferson was born there.

I had trouble with the intersection of NORMA and ADLERS. Otherwise, an OK grid, our last TMS Daily Monday puzzle. By the way, here is a picture of Rich Norris, the editor for LA Times Daily puzzle. He looks very serious, doesn't he? On the other hand, Barry Silk looks so relaxed and morally MOREL.

Across:

1A: Diet beers: LITES. I don't eat or drink anything LITE or no-fat. Have to eat real food.

9A: Native Israeli: SABRA. Dictionary says it means "prickly pear" in Hebrew. A person who immigrates to Israel is called OLEH (masculine) or OLAH (feminine). I suppose SABRA can be either a man or a woman?

14A: Stern or Babel: ISAAC. I did not know ISAAC Babel, the Russian Jewish writer. He was shot to death by Stalin's secret police.

17A: Very large in scale: MACRO. I think my diet mirrors that of Macrobiotics, except that I don't eat brown rice.

19A: National symbols: FLAGS. This is Chinese National flag, with 5 stars. The colors and designs kind of resembles the old Soviet Union flag.

24A: Glacial epoch: ICE AGES

26A: Skeans and dirks: DAGGERS. Skean is a new DAGGER to me. It's formerly used in Ireland and in the Scottish Highlands.

29A: Arlene and Roald: DAHLS. Someone mentioned last time that DAHL means "valley" in Norwegian language. Related to DALE I suppose.

31A: "Over There" cont.: EUR. Guessed. Why "Over There"? Old movie title?

42A: Verdun's river: MEUSE. No idea. I did not know where Verdun is. See this map. It flows from NE France through E Belgium and S Netherlands into the North Sea. Last time I linked the same map when ARGONNE was clued as "WWI battle site".

43A: Spanish dish: PAELLA. Literally "frying pan" in Catalan. Saffron is probably the most expensive spice in the world.

48A: Bellini opera: NORMA. Unknown to me. Wikipedia says it's first produced at La Scala in 1831 and it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the Bel canto tradition, whatever that is. This is the only NORMA I know.

53A: Engaged: BUSY. I wanted RAPT.

57A: Poetic peeper: ORB. Maybe you can find me a poem where the poet wrote "Oh, how lovely thine ORBS are".

62A: Mythical weeper: NIOBE. Can you believe this is a gimme for me? Lots of solvers found me last year when they searched this word. Anyway, NIOBE had 14 kids, and she she bragged of her superiority to LETO, who only had two kids (the Twins Apollo & Artemis, fathered by Zeus). Then all her kids were slewn by Apollo and Artemis. And NIOBE herself was turned into stone by Zeus while weeping her loss.

66A: Stuffed __ (kishke): DERMA. Nope. Have never heard of kishke either. Looks just like sausage. I hope it's sweet and not garlicky.

68A: Jamaican cultist: RASTA. Ah, Bob Marley. Here is his "No Woman No Cry", to comfort our "Mythical weeper" NIOBE.

Down:

2D: Munich's river: ISAR

4D: Solicit persistently: EARWIG. New word to me. This insect shows up when I googled EARWIG.

5D: Wall bracket: SCONCE. Mine was SOCKET.

6D: Glacial chasm: CREVASSE. Same as crevice?

7D: 1953 Jane Wyman movie: SO BIG. The answer presented itself to me. The original novel won a Pulitzer for Edna Ferber in 1925.

12D: Moore or Mudd: ROGER. Not familiar with the journalist ROGER Mudd.

21D: Evening in Venezia: SERA. Italian for evening. I did not know Venezia is Italian for Venice.

26D: Star of "Sleepy Hollow": DEPP (Johnny). Have never seen this movie. "Heads will roll" sounds scary.

27D: Intangible quality: AURA. "Intangible" indeed.

35D: Aoki of golf: ISAO. Golf HOFer. He belongs to history. Now all eyes are on Ryo Ishikawa. Sensational. We will see him at the Masters this year.

44D: Henri's girl: AMIE. How to say "girlfriend" in Spanish? By the way, I've had enough Bernard-Henri Levy and his narcissistic unbuttoned white shirt.

46D: Garbage boat: SCOW. Barge popped into my mind. It's also a garbage boat, isn't it?

49D: Felix and Polly: ADLERS. No idea. Polly ADLER was a Russia-born brothel madam. Three Felix ADLERS here. I don't know which one the constructor was thinking.

54D: One archangel: URIEL

56D: Aluminum company: ALCOA. Oh my God, I just found out this morning that ALCOA is traded at $5.73/share. Unbelievable.

59D: Singer Delange: ILSE. I forgot. She is a Dutch country singer.

63D: NYC subway line: BMT (Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit). Can never remember this initial.

C.C.